Breast Milk

Last week was all about breast milk -- specifically, a big kid standing on a stool while being nursed by his young, attractive mom on the cover of Time magazine . In all the media hubbub, a story about raw milk infecting 10 people in California with Campylobacter didn't get the attention it deserved. In a Grub Street post , Krista Simmons points to a series of recent raw milk mishaps across the country. Never mind the raw milk advocates who swear by its many health benefits . Simmons not only argues against consuming raw milk but also against the push to legalize it. “Much as we support personal liberty, small farms, and less processed and commodity-raised goods, this raw milk business seems downright dangerous,” she writes, asking: “Wouldn't states like New Jersey, who are currently aiming to legalize the sale of raw milk, be better off fighting elements of the food system that are plaguing the nation?

Time magazine fanned the flame around the "attachment parenting" debate Thursday with its provocative cover of a young mom breast-feeding her almost 4-year-old-son. Imagine the controversy the cover would have sparked if she were feeding him vegan breast milk? Oy . The New York Times broached this topic on Room For Debate last month, pitting former child actress and attachment parenting advocate Mayim Bialik against, well, working women. In Motherhood vs. Feminism , the moderator asked: “Has women's obsession with being the perfect mother destroyed feminism?

May 8, 2012 | By Eryn Brown, Los Angeles Times / for the Booster Shots blog

The aid organization Save the Children released its annual State of the World's Mothers report Tuesday. Once again, conditions for moms in the U.S. trailed that of many other developed nations. The country's position climbed six places to 25 th , sandwiched between Belarus and the Czech Republic. Save the Children's 2012 rankings compare 165 countries - 122 in the developing world - examining maternal health, education and economic status alongside the health and nutrition of children.

Is it nutritionally risky to put babies and children on a vegan diet, or is it the best thing for them? "When a mother eats meat, her breast-fed child's brain grows faster and she is able to wean the child at an earlier age, allowing her to have more children faster," according to a new article by Swedish researchers in the journal PLoS One that links eating meat to evolution. The article doesn't speak to whether mothers should still eat meat for their babies' health.

The vegan lifestyle isn't mainstream yet, but it's surely on its way thanks to the whole food movement inspired by the likes of "Forks Over Knives" and "Food Inc. " Trendy vegan cookbooks, blogs and personalities continue to multiply as we all get " vegucated ," as do the vegan options served at restaurants. I don't remember the last time I was in a restaurant that didn't serve kale or some sort of braised greens. Then again, this is L.A. But is pushing veganism onto children taking things too far?

Breast-feeding has a long list of potential benefits. Now some researchers say there's evidence of one more -- protection against sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, a form of unexpected death that kills more than 2,000 infants each year in the U.S. Such a link had been suspected, based on some studies, but to get a better idea of the true association, an international team of researchers analyzed an array of studies on breast-feeding and...

Pumping breast milk at the office is considerably more time-consuming and inconvenient than feeding an infant formula. So the latest breastfeeding research will come as no surprise to anyone who’s considered either option: Women who take the least amount of maternity leave may be less likely to breastfeed, or at least breastfeed for very long, than women who take longer maternity leaves. Researchers at the Georgia Department of Community Health...

Breastfeeding is universally recommended as the superior method for feeding infants because it's linked to long-term prevention of various illnesses including asthma, diabetes and obesity. A study released Monday puts more emphasis on breastfeeding by showing it may have a lasting impact on metabolism. French researchers analyzed three years of data following 234 children and how they were fed after birth. One group of children received only breast milk for the first four months of life.

Breast milk may do more than sustain an infant; in the future, it could also be used to help assess breast cancer risk. At least, that’s what a small study hints. By screening breast milk for cells that can turn into cancer, researchers believe they can develop a way to warn women if they’re at an increased risk of developing breast cancer later in life. Results from the new study were presented Monday at the American Assn. for Cancer Research in Orlando. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst collected fresh milk samples from about 250 women, one sample from each breast.

What could be healthier for a baby than feeding him nothing but breast milk for the first six months of his life? Not relying exclusively on breast milk for the first six months of life, according to a small group of experts on pediatric health from the United Kingdom. Writing online this week in the British Medical Journal, they question whether it makes sense for parents in developed countries to follow the World Health Organization’s advice to provide six months of exclusive breast feeding.